The L-Plate Vegan
Ready-Made Meals
The supermarkets are catching up with the vegan trend and
all supply ready-to-scoff vegan meals. Although pricey and
generally too small for your average Viva! taste-tester,
you may want to try these and see what you think…
Simply Organic are our favourite – tastiest
and organic. Their Pure and Pronto range includes Mixed
Bean Chilli and Morrocan Vegetable Terrine.
Also try the Lentil & Winter Vegetable Stew; Mixed
Vegetable Curry and Mixed Vegetable Casserole (from Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Booths)
Asda Mushroom Dopiaza; Indian
Pilau Rice; Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables
Waitrose Masala Dahl (yummy
with their Spinach & Carrot Pilau Rice); Bombay
Potatoes
Tesco Gobi Aloo Saag; Tex
Mex Style Vegetable Chilli; Healthy Eating
Vegetable Chilli & Rice. They also have meals
in tins, including Saag Aloo; Lentil
Dhal and Bombay Potatoes
Marks & Spencer Ratatouille; Bombay
Aloo; Mushroom Provencal; Vegetable
Curry
Co-op Healthy Living Baked Bean Dinner
Jacket
Stagg Vegetable Chilli (tinned)
Granovita Vegetable Hot Pot (tinned)
Schwartz’s packet seasonings in Spanish
Roasted Vegetables; Mexican 3 Pepper Chilli and Bombay
Potato flavours. Not a finished meal
but sprinkle one on your veg when you’re cooking and it nearly will be – easy!
If you have a good health food shop in your town look for
the
following meals in tins: The Really Interesting Food Company range
includes Gado Gado (veg in a spicy peanut butter and coconut
sauce); Moorish Garbanzo’s (chick peas in a tomato and
pepper sauce); Columbo Curry (veg and TVP in a Sri Lankan
coconut sauce);
Thai Green Curry (fried tofu and veg in a classic Thai curry
sauce) or Thai Temple Curry (chick pea and veg in a curry
sauce). Mr Bean also makes meals in tins although the range
isn’t quite as wide: Three Bean Vegetable or Mixed
Bean Chilli and Vegetable Goulash.
All the above would go great with rice, couscous, crusty bread
or as
a baked potato filling.
Pies and Pasties
If you’re a keen cook, you can make your own pies and
pasties using Jus-Rol pastry (found
in the freezer section of supermarkets – choose from
filo, puff or short-crust). You could also try Asda puff
pastry or their filo pastry. But
if you’d rather buy them ready-made, try the
gorgeous range from Clive’s Pies, especially their Chestnut
Cassoulet, Creamy Mushroom or Arabian Chickpea.
These are available from some health food shops. Also try:
Ambrosian Foods Cheezy Bean Pasties; Cheez ‘n’ Chive
Pasties; Tomato & Garlic Sosage Rolls (all
frozen and ready to cook)
Pukka Pies Vegetable Pie (these
can usually only be found in fish and chip shops, but ask if
you can buy them frozen to cook at home)
Zedz Foods range including their Mild
Coconut Curry Pasty and their Pizza Pasty filled
with Vegan Cheese and a rich tomato sauce
Holland & Barrett Vegetarian
Jumbo Sos Roll and their Porkless Pie (we
kid you not!)
Linda McCartney’s Deep Country
Pies and Vegetable Slices
Pasta
Pasta is a cheap, healthy and delicious food. For a quick
and easy spaghetti bolognese cook some Realeat mince
with onion, a tin of tomatoes, oregano, garlic and fresh basil.
Top it off with vegan Parmazano and serve
with a side salad. If you want an even quicker pasta meal,
open a tin of Waitrose Organic Fusilli,
heat and eat!
Why not get saucy?! Marks & Spencer make
a tasty Tomato & Basil Sauce, or you can
get Ragu or Dolmio sauces
in any supermarket or health food shop. Check out Meridian
Foods’ Organic Red Pepper & Sweet
Chilli Pasta Sauce or their Creamy White Wine & Mushroom
Sauce. Also try Loyd Grossman’s Tomato & Chilli and Tomato & Chargrilled
Vegetables sauces, or Seeds of Change Organic
Slow Roasted Garlic & Chilli or Chilli
with Jalapeno Peppers sauces. And don’t forget Le
Moulin d’Andiran range of sauces and in particular
the Organic Tofu Bolognese. Also keep a look
out for the huge choice of pestos available in health shops
and supermarkets, such as those by Zest and George
Skoulikas. Go on – get your pinny on!
Stir Fry
You can get great selections of ready prepared vegetables
for stir fries in the chilled and frozen counters of your supermarket.
Sling ‘em in a wok and once they start to soften add
one of the various sauces available. Sharwoods are
one of the most popular, their vegan flavours including Sweet
Chilli with Lemongrass; Hoi-sin & Spring
Onion; Black Bean and Spicy
Tomato & Szechuan. Blue Dragon products
certainly look the part and taste it too! Try their Peking
Lemon; Sweet & Sour or Canton
Black Bean sauces and be transported to the orient!
Serve with rice or noodles (but not egg noodles of course!).
Curry
No need to give up your Ruby Murray when you switch to the
Uncle Reg! The Eastern diet is largely animal-free so your
local Indian will be packed with suitable spicy specials (try
saying that after a mouthful!). For those who fancy rustling
up their own there are loads of sauces available. Cook some
veg, such as cauliflower, broccoli or potatoes, then add Meridian
Foods’ Korma Sauce or Tikka
Masala Sauce, or Loyd Grossman’s Balti
Curry Sauce or Rogan Josh Curry Sauce.
Rice
Rice is a great basis for many meals – Indian, Spanish,
Thai, Chinese and so on. Brown or white, long/short grain,
basmati, boil-in-the-bag – whichever you buy, you’ll
find fool-proof instructions on the packet.
To make savoury rice, try this simple recipe:
- Gently fry
a clove of garlic and a medium chopped onion in melted margarine
until tender.
- Add
a chopped red pepper, some chopped mushrooms and, after
a few mins, a chopped courgette.
- Continue to
gently cook until the veg are tender. Add a handful of cashew
nuts, a tablespoon (or two) of soy sauce and a teaspoon of
chopped fresh dill.
- Mix in cooked
brown rice and season with black pepper.
- Serve with a
flan, or just with salad.
Soup
Soup is the easiest thing in the world to make, providing
you have a blender in the kitchen. All you need is your choice
of cooked veg, some water, a veggie stock cube (Oxo vegetable
and Safeway’s
vegetable stock cubes are vegan) and some herbs. Then blend! Try
carrot and coriander as a great combination, or leek and potato. To make them
extra creamy, use part soya milk, part water, or add soya cream after you’ve
blended it together. Let your imagination run riot! Serve with crusty bread
or opt for a savoury muffin such as the Sundried Tomato & Oregano one
from Zedz Foods.
For those of you without an imagination or a blender there
are plenty of vegan soups in the shops. Here’s just a
few:
Simply Organic Soup to Go – Chunky
Tomato & Lentil and Chunky Tomato (available
in Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons and Booths)
Blue Dragon’s excellent Wonton
Soup from Tesco and other supermarkets
in the Chinese section
Baxter’s Healthy Helpings Chunky
Country Vegetable
Campbell’s: Condensed Lentil; Hearty
Vegetable; Mediterranean Tomato
Heinz Lentil; Carrot,
Potato & Coriander; Split Pea & Lentil; Vegetable
Sainsbury’s Organic soups – Tuscan
Bean; Winter Vegetable; Tomato & Basil; Vegetable & Barley
Broth
Waitrose Tomato & Basil; Mediterranean
Vegetable (from the chiller cabinet)
Marks & Spencer Spicy Tomato & Lentil (in
the chiller cabinet)
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